Tuesday, August 25, 2009

COMMENTS: 48 hours of hemming and hawing about this game comes to a merciful end today with our Minotaur on the mound. Despite the Dodgers' 10-2 record against the Rockies this year, including a sweep at Coors Field in May, everyone is forecasting the imminent downfall of the Dodgers. Accuscore gives the Rockies a 54% chance of winning (58% as of WSJ's press run last night, so at least our trajectory is improving), the LATimes' Helene Elliott takes a break from following the Kings and Galaxy to slash the tires of the Dodgers' bandwagon, and the only guy we seem to have on our side is Steve Phillips, an omen which portends doom like a circling vulture.

Tonight, we put this yippin' and yappin' to rest. Kershaw hasn't had a win since July 18 but is 1-1 with 1 ND against Colorado this year. Hammel is 0-1 against the Dodgers with 1 ND, and has gotten three wins in his last four starts (reflecting the Rockies' recent streak). Assuming Clayton can come out strong and our rested bullpen can hold up, what I'm really hoping to see tonight is a breakout performance by James Loney (he is 2-for-5 lifetime against Hammel with a 1.600 OPS, and his OPS+ of 143 against the Rockies is the highest among all NL West opponents), assuming Loney has recovered from the flu. It would also be nice to see Manny Ramirez get his OPS back up over 1.000 (Ramirez is 0-for-5 lifetime against Hammel). Heck, Coors Field is the place for all of the Dodgers to get out of their offensive funk.

And we need to play a full nine, or even 14, innings here guys. It is Coors Field, after all. Let's not pull a Merkin. {In the meantime, we're going back to two GT superstitions, rather than the overloaded three that didn't seem to work out so well on Sunday.)

HAH! I hadn't thought of the breakfast vs banquet, time of day dichotomy. Nicely played.

On the craft beer front, maybe I can break into Craftsman (http://www.craftsmanbrewing.com/) up the road, bring a radio (and a laptop with wifi so I can post my masterful insight) and just tap a keg of their stuff on the spot. Truly the anti-Coors.

Blueberry? Jesus, god. I feel like I need to go change my oil or throw a football for just knowing such a sissy swill exists. I mean, I'm a renaissance man for the most part, but shhhheyat, that sounds bad.

"We've got to go out and play hard and if not, we come back next year and play again," Ramirez said. "We're not going to go and kill ourselves, you know." Manny said the same thing in 2007 and was CRUCIFIED by the Boston media. He broke out of his slump and found his form in leading the Sox to another World Series title.

To be fair to HLACK, he did lead in with a High Life recommendation. I would think that its blue-collar chops are more than adequate to cancel out any fancy-pants-fruit-infused-faux-pas he may have committed.

If we really want to get into some beer snobbery, I'll be happy to join in.

the blueberry was simply and aesthetic choice based on color. tell you what, you can feed your girlfriend some blueberry so she's drinking the Blue, and you can have a High Life/Guiness black and tan. Or if you want to go nuts, have one of those shakes that are all the rage.